Web Conferencing Tips, News, and Opinions

June 29, 2018

This is just a quick cross-posting alert. The online magazine "Indezine" was kind enough to invite me to contribute an article on their targeted field of PowerPoint presentations. I gave them my 'Top 5 Tips For Remote Presentation Design."

One of my tips is a suggestion that is often misinterpreted and sometimes generates controversy. I suggest aiming for an average of one slide change per minute during web presentations.

I always try to couch this in disclaimers that this is a rough cumulative average over the entire duration of your talk. Don't get hung up on making every slide fit exactly 60 seconds of scripting. The idea is there to avoid "too fast" or "too slow" slide changes. If you rapidly click through a succession of slides, it can overwhelm the ability of some web conferencing programs to stay synchronized for all audience members. People can get frustrated if they don't have time to take in your visual content.

On the other hand, you don't want to give remote attendees a chance to get bored with the visuals. Once they start looking elsewhere, you lose their full attention. Even if they keep listening to you, their retention rate goes down if they are playing solitaire or answering emails on their computer. Slide changes act as a way to refocus active attention back to your presentation, so you want to make use of that psychological assist.

Some presenters interpret my rule of thumb to mean: "Read long slides really quickly, so you can get through all that text in a minute." That is definitely not the intent! If you need to convey a lot of information, split it into successive smaller chunks so that you and your audience can focus on one nugget at a time. Each gets its own slide that carries full focus and attention. Then you move on to the next little piece of your recitation. You end up with the same total amount of data on your slides, but each slide becomes easier to take in, allows white space or room for a graphic to set it off, and lets you incorporate more slide changes to retain visual focus.

June 12, 2018

I worked on a client webinar today featuring an elementary school principal. She showed this picture of her students producing and broadcasting the daily school news video. The boy sitting next to the principal is telling the "joke of the day" while the girls monitor framing and check the outbound feed. the man is just documenting how the whole thing gets made, and is not a part of the process itself.

The picture really made me think. First, I marveled at the fact that these elementary students have a better technical setup than most business professionals who appear on video webinars or webcasts. The presenters have a simple background that does not distract the viewer's eye. The camera is slightly above the presenters' eye lines and has them properly framed. The video image is visible if needed, but is not directly in front of the presenters, so they don't keep trying to sneak a peek at their image and can instead maintain proper eye contact with the camera. The camera is far enough away to capture the full upper body of the presenters and still allow enough room to capture hand gestures or a little head and body movement.

Compare that with the usual webinar video taken from a business person's laptop computer, shooting up into their nostrils, with the ceiling featured as a background. The close proximity of the webcam means that perspectives are foreshortened and moving your hands even slightly toward the camera makes them appear gigantic. Any upper body motion moves you out of your tight closeup framing.

But more than this, I started thinking about what I would tell the students if I were invited to help them improve their presentation techniques. I would have to keep it very simple, concentrating on a few key fundamentals. You can't overwhelm a child just learning the basics of presenting.

If they kept developing their skills, they would have the opportunity to work on additional techniques, practicing vocal skills, projection, diction, scripting, on-camera behaviors, incorporation of graphics and other supporting materials, and so on. Over time, they would develop into better and better presenters - a skill that would help them throughout their lives in feeling comfortable in front of others, learning how to communicate effectively, and having the ability to effectively inform and influence other people. They should be able to look back on their early, primitive steps into this field of expertise and shake their heads wistfully… "I can't believe how bad I was! If I only knew then what I know now."

Which brings me to my key question for you… Do you ever shake your head wistfully and say "I can't believe how bad I used to be as a presenter. If I only knew then what I know now?" You should! Presentation skills are like any other learned skill set. You learn additional techniques over time, building on what you have assimilated and have become comfortable with. You feel capable of incorporating greater sophistication in using interactive techniques, working with supporting multimedia, or structuring your talk to make it more persuasive and useful for your audience.

I keep my old presentations archived. Some in PowerPoint form, some in script documents, some in audio or video recordings. I often look back through them to get ideas or pull out snippets I remember using in the past. I usually cringe at the quality of my past materials. But that is right and proper. If I'm no better now than I was then, what have I been doing with my career?

Athletes, opera singers, construction workers, and doctors all expect to keep learning, keep practicing, and keep improving their skills. But presenters too often feel that "this is good enough." I hope you will feel inspired to stay on a path to continual improvement as a presenter, learning and incorporating better practices for crafting your speeches, your materials, and your delivery. Enjoy the growth that lets you look back on your past efforts with the bittersweet smile of experience.

June 07, 2018

Ah, the age-old question. There isn't a presentation coach in the world who doesn't get asked how to combat nerves.

In almost every case, it's the wrong question to ask. MOST people are nervous speaking in front of groups. Many famous actors and singers have spoken openly about the fact that they get tremendous stage fright before going on stage. You may NEVER get to the point where you don't feel nervous.

So the real question needs to shift from "how do I avoid feeling nervous" to "how do I present effectively even though I feel nervous?"

Nobody ever wants to hear the best and most effective strategy. It's simple… You practice over and over and over until you know exactly what you are going to do, what you are going to say, how you are going to emphasize key points, when you are going to reference key data or visuals. Athletes refer to this as "developing muscle memory." A golfer trying to sink the winning putt on the last hole in front of a huge gallery (with millions more watching on television) is nervous as hell. He or she relies on letting the body complete the motions it has gone through time after time.

Actors, singers, and monologists rehearse and rehearse before you ever see them. That lets them go through the motions of their performance even though they might be shaking in fear before the curtain goes up.

The TEDx Talk page outlines a sample timeline for speakers that starts first rehearsals four months before the talk date! Two months out, rehearsals are bi-weekly. One month out, rehearsals are weekly. Then more rehearsals. Then more.

I will be the first to admit that this is overkill for all but the most critical of public performances. But the underlying concept is solid. The more comfortable you are with your content and how you present it, the less it matters that you happen to feel nervous. You can perform in the presence of nerves because you have developed "muscle memory" of your delivery. I remain astonished at how many webinar presenters fail to even do one complete word-for-word run through of their presentation before the public air date.

I want to clarify one important point in this analogy. You have an advantage over Adele or Barbra Streisand or Laurence Olivier (famous stage fright sufferers). You don't have to memorize every word you plan to say, every lyric of a song, every stage movement. Sure, work with a script in your early rehearsals if it makes you feel more comfortable. Then throw it away for your live presentation. Don't try to memorize your speech. You will forget something and it will throw you into a panic. Speak conversationally. You will know your topic, you will know what you wanted to say about it. You will remember some key phrases just by dint of having said them in your rehearsals. But you won't freeze up when you forget one word in the middle of a sentence.

But that's not what you were hoping for, is it? Rehearsals are too much work… Too boring… Too time-consuming. You are a busy person tapped to do one webinar. You just want a simple device - a trick to help settle the butterflies in your stomach. How about the old "visualize the audience in their underwear?" Does that work?

No, it doesn't.

I can only give you two pieces of "quick 'n dirty" advice. The first is well tested and proven in stressful situations of all sorts. Practice five minutes of regulated, intentional breathing before your presentation. Breathe in for at least four seconds. Hold for at least four seconds. Breathe out for at least four seconds. Hold for at least four seconds. Repeat. This has an incredible calming effect on the body.

The second piece of advice comes from "The King and I" by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Follow the lyrics from "Whistle A Happy Tune" and ask yourself how a brave and confident person would behave in this situation. Then fake it. Pretend you're calm and it often comes across as if you really are!

Whenever I feel afraid I hold my head erect And whistle a happy tune So no one will suspect I'm afraid

While shivering in my shoes I strike a careless pose And whistle a happy tune And no one ever knows I'm afraid

The result of this deception Is very strange to tell For when I fool the people I fear I fool myself as well

I whistle a happy tune And every single time The happiness in the tune Convinces me that I'm Not afraid

Make believe you're brave And the trick will take you far You may be as brave As you make believe you are